Beware of Patients Suffering from Chantix Side Effects

Cincinatti, OHChantix has been on the market for only four years, but the smoking cessation drug has gained quite a reputation for provoking some very strange behaviors among its users…

A 24-year-old woman on the drug woke her boyfriend up and started beating him without any warning, finishing with an attempt to kill herself.

A 21-year-old woman threatened her own mother with a shotgun.

A 46-year-old man reported he had "crazy thoughts" of killing himself and his parents.

A 42-year-old man punched a stranger at a bowling alley.

Researchers in a study that appeared this month in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy scrutinized information from 78 adverse reaction reports received by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal drug regulatory authority that oversees the nation's drug industry. Researchers whittled the list down to 26. Of those, ten involved assault, nine involved homicidal thoughts, and seven cases included other thoughts or acts of aggression or violence.

It should be noted that of the 78 adverse reaction reports cited in the research, four cases were reported in clinical trials and three others had already appeared in published literature.

The authors of the study, Thomas J. Moore, Joseph Glenmullen, and Curt D. Furberg, found that in almost all of the cases, the unsavory behavior disappeared when Chantix therapy was stopped.

Chantix is designed to block nicotine from reaching receptors in the brain responsible for producing and releasing dopamine, the chemical that serves as the "feel good" aspect of smoking. The theory goes that if you take the good feeling away, smoking will become less pleasurable, thereby making it easier to stop.

It should be noted that Chantix has worked remarkably well for some. What's more, proponents of Chantix point to the fact quitting smoking is a challenge at the best of times, and smokers attempting to kick the habit without medicinal help have been known to behave strangely or violently.

Pfizer, the manufacturer of Chantix, responded to the Annals of Pharmacotherapy article by disagreeing "strongly" with the study's conclusions.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Pfizer said: "Pfizer takes the safety of all of its medicines seriously. All post-marketing reports of adverse events are reviewed by Pfizer, and reported to regulators, including FDA. The currently approved Chantix label contains a boxed warning regarding reports of serious neuropsychiatric events reported in some patients. If these neuropsychiatric symptoms are observed by the physician, patient or caregiver, patients should stop taking Chantix and notify their healthcare provider immediately. There is no reliable scientific evidence demonstrating that Chantix causes these events."

The drug was given a black box anyway last year, and there have been reports that airline and military pilots have been forbidden to fly while on Chantix. Thomas J. Moore, senior scientist for drug safety and policy at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, cited Chantix as so potentially dangerous that its use should be restricted to exclude police, military, and similar occupations in which workers carry weapons.

He told WebMD, "My colleagues and I have been concerned about the safety profile of [Chantix] since our first report [warning of adverse events] in 2008."